Street Stories

This year’s edition of Delmar Gallery’s popular summer exhibition embraces the theme of urbanity and the urbane, from the whimsical to the sublime! Including ceramics, video, painting and more by artist from Sydney and Melbourne.

Janusz Wawrowski

Hailed as “one of Poland’s brightest young talents” (Strings), virtuoso violinist Janusz Wawrowski is held in the highest regard for his “utmost artistry and musical conviction” (The Strad).

As a very young student, he shot to prominence with an extraordinary performance in one evening of all 24 Caprices by Paganini, which he recorded in 2007 as his first CD. In 2013 he signed a multi-year contract with Warner Music and will be recording next year with the BBC Symphony Orchestra.

He will be coming to Sydney on the invitation of Kambala, and we are thrilled he has agreed to give this recital at the conclusion of his visit.

Date: Wednesday 26 November, 7.30pm

Venue: Orchestra Room, Roderick West School of Music

Tickets: from $20 / FREE for Trinity students & Society of the Arts members.

Remembering Sculthorpe: Works for Solo Piano

Acclaimed concert pianist Tamara-Anna Cislowska presents a moving and evocative recital of works by Peter Sculthorpe spanning seven decades. From his earliest work for solo piano,Nocturne (1945) through to his last, Riverina (2011), this program takes us on the journey of his remarkable career. Unique and unforgettable, Sculthorpe’s imagery is that of a composer, a dreamer, and a man with an incomparable understanding of our land, our people and our hearts.

In 2014, ABC Classics released Cislowska’s double CD, Peter Sculthorpe: Complete Works for Solo Piano, deemed ‘Recording of the Month’ in BBC Music Magazine, and described as ‘a profoundly affecting release’ by Gramophone magazine. At the age of 14, Cislowska met Sculthorpe for the first time and performed his Piano Concerto with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra, and so began a lifelong friendship. Cislowska was Sculthorpe’s choice for the recording of this CD.

Proudly presented by Trinity Grammar School’s Society of the Arts as part of its 2015 Concert Series.

Date: Thursday 15 October, 7.30pm
Venue: The Orchestra Room, Roderick West School of Music
Tickets: $30/$20 conc & seniors / $75 family of four / Free for Trinity Students & Society of the Arts Members

Sibo Bangoura & Friends

Take an exhilarating musical journey through West Africa with the charismatic Sibo Bangoura (Guinea) and his band on Wednesday 2 September: an evening of traditional song and dance, rich melody and high energy percussion!

Born into a Griot family in Guinea, Sibo truly has rhythm and music are in his blood. As a “Griot”, or traditional storyteller and musician, he is responsible for passing on cultural traditions to the next generation. With Sibo on djembe and kora, the line-up features members of his band Keyim Ba including celebrated Senegalese percussionist Yacou MBaye on doun doun, sabar and congas, Jon Pease on lead guitar, the funky bass lines of Tina Harris and dancer Rachel Bangoura completing the picture.

Home: New Photography from Greece

Home will be on from Saturday 9 May, 3pm, and comes all the way from Thessaloniki, Greece to its only Australian venue. We are honoured to have the Greek Ambassador, Mr Dafaranos and his wife, come up from Canberra to officially open Home: New Photography from Greece. It will run until Sunday 7 June 2015.

Home has been co-curated by Jacob Aue Sobol of Magnum Photos and the Photography Centre of Thessaloniki in Greece. The exhibition raises profound questions about the meaning of home – what defines the environment that home represents? Is it possible to portray your own feeling of home in an unfamiliar setting?

Twenty-one Greek photographers were invited to participate in a five-day workshop with Mr Sobol in the northern hemisphere summer of 2013. At the workshop, the photographers were tasked with photographing the idea of ‘home’ in an unfamiliar environment – the small village of Lafkos, a place where none of the photographers had been before.

“Home is a place of memories. It is where we have our roots. It is a place we keep returning to. If we want to learn more about ourselves and the world we live in, this is where we look – in our own backyard. The place where our personality is shaped and dreams are built,” Mr Sobol said.

This free exhibition features over 70 photographs that were captured during the workshop and over the following months. After a successful showing in Thessaloniki in February, Trinity Grammar School’s Delmar Gallery is thrilled to have the opportunity to present these compelling images to an Australian audience.

London Klezmer Quartet (UK)

We are delighted to welcome back the London Klezmer Quartet after their sell-out concert at Delmar Gallery on Tuesday 24 March as part of their first Australian tour. Their music taps traditional and original melodies in the spirit of the Jewish minstrels who have performed in Eastern Europe for hundreds of years. From sultry Romanian doynes to fiery freylekhs, the band blends celebration and soul in a musical fusion that sparkles with life! This is truly a concert that will captivate audiences of all ages, from 9 to 90! Limited seating, book early to avoid disappointment.

Marcello Maio and Phil Stack

In a rare collaboration especially for the Society of the Arts, accordionist, composer and musical director Marcello Maio will be performing at Delmar Gallery with double bass player Phil Stack on 17 February. Maio is a true ‘musician’s musician’, whose flair and facility has seen him range from a season with the Song Company to the Australian tour of Atlanta soul artist Cody ChestnuTT plus regular appearances with his own jazz trio. In Roland Peelman’s words (director of the Song Company), “Marcello can do anything!”

Stack is a previous winner of the National Jazz Awards, a founding member of multi-platinum rock/pop group Thirsty Merc and in demand for studio and live performances around the world. He began touring with legendary trumpeter James Morrison at the age of 19, after winning the James Morrison Scholarship when he graduated from the Sydney Conservatorium.

Drawing on Maio’s original jazz compositions along with celebrated works by Piazzolla and Jobim, classic French musette and standards, expect an evening of dramatic, chamberlike sound, a keen sense of rhythmic interest and exquisite improvisation! The recital will be a little over an hour in duration, and light refreshments will be served afterwards, when you will also have the chance to meet the musicians.

Homelands

All are welcome to attend the opening of our first exhibition “Homelands” at Delmar Gallery tomorrow (31 January at 3.30pm running until 1 March). As well as viewing the exhibition, you can meet the artists and hear an opening address at 3.30pm by Mr Simon Chan. Mr Chan is Director of Simon Chan & Associates Architects, a firm he established in 1987. In 2009, he founded Art Atrium Gallery to exhibit contemporary Australian, Asian and Aboriginal art with a special focus on cross cultural collaboration and expression in art. He was the recipient of the inaugural NSW Premier’s Multicultural Award for Arts & Culture (2013). He is also President of the Haymarket Chamber of Commerce, Vice President of the Australian Chinese Community Association and Co-Principal Sponsor of the Paddington Art Prize.

The works in the exhibition range from symbolist charcoal drawings and a graphic novel by Anton Pulvirenti, telling the story of the artist’s Italian grandfather’s internment during WWII; a poetic, short film by Zheng Zheqing about his quest to make sense of a new culture and place, acclimatising to Sydney as an international student; to a monumental sculpture by Ingrid van der Aa representing the artist’s Dutch and Australian identities.

Also included are impressive drawings by Abdullah M. I. Syed, layered prints by Lucienne Fontannaz and sculpture Merryn Hull. The six artists have either just completed or are finishing PhD and Masters degrees at the National Art School, Sydney College of the Arts and UNSW Art & Design. Abdullah Syed exhibits regularly in New York, Karachi and Dubai, and has participated in many group exhibitions since moving to Sydney five years ago. Lucienne Fontannaz, Merryn Hull and Ingrid van der Aa have had previous careers as a curator, architect and counsellor respectively. Anton Pulvirenti is one of the last practitioners of the art of Sicilian cart painting and is represented by Dominik Mersch Gallery, Sydney. Zheng Zheqing is practising as an artist in Shanghai.

Soul of a city: Modernism and Sydney Photographer 1930-1950

17 May – 15 June 2014

Featuring vintage and rare prints by EO Hoppé, Harold Cazneaux, Olive Cotton, Max Dupain and David Moore, charting the development of a modernist aesthetic with the city as subject and context. Lenders to the exhibition: Pat Corrigan and Josef Lebovic Gallery.

Models for the afterlife

9 March – 13 April 2014

Presented in collaboration with the Asian Arts Institute of Australia, the exhibition explored ritual, mythology and the afterlife in Ancient Chinese ceramics (Neolithic to Tang Dynasty) and contemporary works by artists Shoufay Derz, Stevie Fieldsend, Marketa Luskacova and Trent Parke.

"Three Voices"

Morton Feldman’s late work Three Voices (1982) is grand scale minimalism at its most sublime. It is also one of the most demanding pieces ever written for voice.

Soprano Sonya Holowell will perform the full work following her presentation of an excerpt at the National Gallery of Australia last year as part of “Sounding Turrell” curated by Roland Peelman.

The three voices – two pre-recorded and the third performed live – surround the audience and sing a capella. Lush, immersive and nuanced, Feldman uses repetition to unlock an astonishing range of rhythms, textures and tone colours.

Previously Young Artist/Director with the Song Company (2014), Holowell currently directs CACHE in POINT, a concert platform for contemporary classical music, inter-disciplinary experimentation and spontaneous music.

Veronique Serret & Bree Van Reyke | Violin & Vibes

Bree van Reyk and Véronique Serret’s new vibraphone and violin duo project presents a unique mix of repertoire bringing together the diverse musical journeys of these two highly acclaimed musicians. Their highly original program will range from re-imagined Bach inventions to Appalachian-influenced folk songs, Finnish reels, deep Congolese grooves, newly commissioned Australian works plus self-styled improvisation!

Serret is currently Concertmaster with the Darwin Symphony Orchestra. Her 2016 international engagements include tours with Sydney Dance Company and Joanna Newsom’s band. 2016 will see van Reyk appear at MOFO and Sydney Festival, tour with the ACO and compose a soundscape for the Venice Architecture Biennale.

Aberhart | Three Decades

Part of the Sydney-wide Head On Photo Festival, this exhibition delves into the rich archive of renowned New Zealand photographer, Laurence Aberhart, presenting over 75 works from 1980 – 2010. Shot exclusively on a century-old 8” x 10” flatbed camera, Aberhart creates luminous, finely detailed contact silver gelatin prints in a process dating from the early days of film photography. Literally imbued with time, his extraordinary photographs are reflections on transience and endurance. They invite us into a world where time has paused, and the past conflates with the present on a deeper timescale.

Born in 1949 in Nelson, Aberhart is one of New Zealand’s most renowned photographers. His work has been the subject of many exhibitions, including a major survey in 2008 at City Gallery, Wellington, curated by Justin Paton and Gregory Burke and accompanied by a comprehensive monograph, and in 2002 at the Stedelijk Museum in Amsterdam. He is represented in Sydney by Darren Knight Gallery.

The Muffat Collective

Date: Tuesday 17 May, 7.30pm

The Muffat Collective takes its name from George Muffat (1653–1704), a remarkable German composer who proposed that “a gathering together of the best styles of various nations would be appropriate in order to amuse you.” He implied that by uniting the French, Italian and German music styles of the Baroque period, he would bring these often quarrelsome nations closer together.

In the hands of four brilliant musicians, Sydney’s newest period ensemble brings you the flair of the Baroque, guaranteed to refresh the spirit – plus entertain and perhaps even amuse!

The Collective’s members have recently returned to Sydney after further study and engagements as soloists, concertmasters and in early music ensembles in Europe. Hear their exquisite interpretation of works by Couperin, Leclair and more, and share in their passion for the Baroque!

The Air is Free: James Fardoulys & Dean Manning

James Fardoulys (1900-1975) arrived in Australia from Kythera, Greece in 1914, and criss-crossed outback Queensland and NSW with his ventriloquist wife and vaudeville troupe in the 1920s. Taking up painting after he retired from taxi driving in 1960, on a South Brisbane verandah he conjured Australian outback and colonial scenes. He mixed memories with whimsy, history with fantasy, and quickly established himself as one of Australia’s foremost naïve painters.

In a kitchen in Athens in 2016, Dean Manning (1964-) mixed traditional Greek pigments to etch out fragments of Athenian life: portraits of rembetiko singers from the 1920s, graffiti and street protests, smoke and conversation in cafes, refugees arriving in Onassis’ port, Ariadne’s thread and the Minotaur. His paintings and video animation find their way beneath the surface of his father’s homeland. Like Fardoulys, Manning is part of the Greek diaspora and a self-taught painter, arriving at painting through his music.

The Air is Free brings together Manning’s imagined Greece with Fardoulys’ imagined Australia. Curated by Catherine Benz

Ricardo Gallén | Solo Guitar Recital

Born in Linares, Spain, Ricardo Gallén began playing classical guitar at the age of four, performing in public just a year later. At the age of ten he entered the Conservatory of Music in Cordoba, and thus began a career which has taken him to the great concert halls of the world. In 2009 he was the youngest professorial appointment at the Franz Liszt Academy in Weimar.

His inspiring and innovative interpretations rank him amongst the world’s top musicians. In the words of Cuban composer Leo Brouwer, his “immense creativity and virtuosity is sensed just by looking at his hands!”

Gallén will be travelling to Australia courtesy of the Adelaide Guitar Festival. With the support of the Cervantes Institute, we are thrilled to present him in Sydney. His solo recital will include works by Agustin Barrios, Antonio Lauro, J. S. Bach and Leo Brouwer.

PRRIM

With an all-star cast featuring koto master Satsuki Odamura, South Indian percussionist Tunji Beier and Australian Art Orchestra’s Adrian Sherriff on bass trombone, PRRIM was always going to be a truly exceptional trio!

Meaning ‘spring’ or ‘well’ in the language of the Wembawemba people of Western Victoria, PRRIM’s music is fresh, alive and spontaneous. Their fluid improvisations and original compositions draw on a deep wellspring of traditional sources, from South Indian to Japanese and Indonesian music plus a touch of jazz.

Driving their sound is the South Indian rhythmic tradition, which they explore as a creative springboard for their musical adventures.

Tapping into emotional depths and with a dynamic rapport rarely witnessed, PRRIM will take you places you’ve never dreamed!

RESOLVED: JOURNEYS IN AUSTRALIAN DESIGN

Following its two-year tour around Australia, this major design exhibition from Object: Australian Design Centre and Workshopped returns to Sydney for a final stop at Delmar Gallery.

Resolved: Journeys In Australian Design showcases the winning entries of the past 12 annual ‘Workshopped’ exhibitions. Workshopped is an organisation that has discovered, nurtured and launched the careers of some of the most exciting and talented designers.

The exhibition will take you behind the scenes to uncover the design ‘journey’ of 12 contemporary Australian designers from inspiration to final resolution. It brings to life the stories that a completed product does not tell, revealing the starts and stops, the revisions and breakthroughs that are part of the process of design.

Each of these designers has a very unique success story that has placed them at the leading edge of their field. The many ways to define ‘success’ will be explored: creative collaborations, sustainable design, contemporary objects with traditional cultural expressions, experimental use of material and manufacture, and innovative application of emerging technology.

THE 64TH BLAKE PRIZE

A Casula Powerhouse Arts Centre Exhibition toured by Liverpool City Council

One of Australia’s longest-running and prestigious art prizes returns to Delmar Gallery as part of its 2017 national tour. Now a biennial event, the Blake Prize continues to stimulate contemporary artists to engage in important conversations concerning faith, spirituality, religion, hope, humanity, social justice, belief and non-belief.

First staged in 1951, The Prize is named after the legendary British artist and poet William Blake (1757-1827) whose broad range of artistic and poetic innovations, visionary imagination and radical politics made him an outsider in his day.

Never shy of controversy, the Blake Prize has always invited an open, personal and idiosyncratic response to questions of religion and spirituality, so much so that it has earned the criticism, ire and sometimes applause of critics and the public alike.

ACACIA QUARTET

Founded in 2010 by four friends with a passion for chamber music, the Acacia Quartet has quickly won great respect for their programs which often couple established repertoire with the unorthodox.

The quartet has been invited to Berlin by the Raphael Foundation to perform and record the string quartets Nos. 1, 2 & 6 by Günter Raphael (1903-60) in May 2017. Their program at Delmar Gallery will include the first of these quartets in E Minor, characteristic of Raphael’s early composition style. It will be complemented by one of Mozart’s most famous and late string quartets – String Quartet No. 15 K421, the second of the quartets dedicated to Haydn and the only one of the set in a minor key.

Light Fields

Light Fields features a site-specific installation by the current international artist-in-residence at the Inner West Council’s Thirning Villa, and video, photomedia, collage and sculpture exploring light and spatial perception by five 2016 Sydney College of the Arts and National Art School graduates.

Using string, UV paint and parabolic curves, Megan Mosholder (USA) has built a reputation for creating beguiling, immersive installations. Her recently-completed commission at Google’s Pittsburgh office snakes through a 2 storey atrium space, playing with our perception of colour, light and space.

CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE

Aris Georgiou

Guest Curator: Jack Pam

Spanning a thirty-year period, this is the first major survey exhibition of Greek photographer Aris Georgiou to be shown in Australia.

With a powerfully romantic, creative sensibility, Georgiou trains his lens on the social world, urbanism and history. Themes of repetition, memory, hope, dreams and love recur as they are warped and exploited by the passage of time.

Proudly presented by Delmar Gallery and produced by the Australian Museum of Contemporary Photography.

MICHAEL KIERAN HARVEY (PIANO)

A champion of Australian music and himself a composer, Michael Kieran Harvey regularly commissions new Australian music and has performed with Australia’s leading contemporary music ensembles and orchestras.

For this rare Sydney appearance, his program focuses on the theme of homage – Andrián Pertout’s homage to his adopted country, “Luz Meridional”; Harvey’s piano cycle “The Green Brain’ inspired by Frank Herbert’s novel; and “Homage to Liszt”, composed by Harvey and dedicated to the inveterate environmentalist, Peter Cundall.

Born in Sydney, he studied piano with Alan Jenkins, Gordon Watson, and at the Liszt Academy, Budapest, under Sándor Falvai. Now based in Tasmania, his career has been notable for its diversity and wide repertoire. He has especially promoted the works of Australian and contemporary composers and recorded many solo CDs on various labels.

Trinity’s Society of the Arts & Delmar Gallery is thrilled to present a solo recital by arguably one of Australia’s greatest pianists.

Date: Thursday 15 June 7.30pm

Venue: Orchestra Room, Roderick West School of Music

Tickets from $20. Free for Trinity students and Society of the Arts members.

RAY HUGHES: AFRICA

In the early 1990s, art dealer Ray Hughes travelled to West Africa and brought back exhibitions the likes of which hadn’t before been seen in Sydney. Kane Kwei’s decorative coffins that Hughes commissioned became the talk of the town and ascended their own special platform of popular local mythology. Voodoo traced beliefs and aesthetics from West Africa to Haiti and back again.

Since his first purchase of a carved wooden “awale” or seed game in 1974, African art and objects have been an integral part of Hughes’ vast personal art collection. The scope and profundity of this collector’s eye has proved to be astounding. Driven by the desire to exhibit and collect art that intrigues, stimulates and amazes, Hughes seeks it out in surprising places.

This is the first time an exhibition focussing on the extraordinary West and Central African art in his collection has been presented.

WAY OUT WEST

..an extraordinary cross-cultural mix that could only be Australian

—THE AGE

Directed by Australian Art Orchestra’s Peter Knight, Way Out West is a listening experience like no other! The multi-award winning cross-cultural septet formed in 2001, beguiling audiences from Melbourne to Montreal and Veneto to Takatsuki with a sound that has been described as “utterly unique”. Taking out the 2016 Music Victoria Award for Best Jazz Album, their most recent release builds on the band’s long history of integrating Asian instrumentation in a contemporary setting, and infusing these influences with West African grooves and jazz inflected melodies.

FEATURING

Peter Knight – trumpet/laptop

Satsuki Odamura – koto

Paul Williamson – saxophone

Lucas Michailidis – guitar

Ray Pereira – percussion

Howard Cairns – bass

Raj Jayaweersa – drums

Date: Wednesday 9 August 7.30pm

Venue: Orchestra Room, Roderick West School of Music

Tickets from $20. Free for Trinity students and Society of the Arts members.

SMASHED SCREENS

“Smashed Screens is about expecting more from the way you view the world. While most people’s vision is now mediated through screens – poorly lit, cracked, diffracted – this group of artists still dares to look outside the plastic frame” – guest curator, Priscilla Bourne.

JAMES MCLEAN

with Christopher Hale & Sam Gill

Melbourne drummer James McLean is fast establishing a reputation as a leading young voice in jazz and experimental improvised music. In 2016, he took out the national Freedman Jazz Fellowship with a sensational performance at the Opera House – becoming the first drummer to claim the prize in its history.

For his first major Sydney engagement since his Freedman win, he will be presenting new solo works followed by duo and trio pieces with award-winning electric bassist Christopher Hale, and saxophonist Sam Gill.

Praised for his enchanting use of rests and resonance, McLean effortlessly draws the audience into his expansive explorations of sound and rhythm, with virtuosity and creative flair in equal measure.

Expect an exhilarating evening of inspired improvisation, searing guitar and a taste of New York’s downtown!

TAKING UP WITH MODERNISM

THE AKKY VAN OGTROP COLLECTION

Focussing on the tumultuous years of the European avant-garde and their legacy, taking up with modernism: the Akky van Ogtrop Collection includes master prints, rare documents and artist’s books from the collection of works on paper specialist, Print Council president and DADA enthusiast, Akky van Ogtrop.

ENSEMBLE ASPHERICAL

Bringing to the stage a wealth of repertoire and experience, Sydney’s newest chamber group Ensemble Aspherical features four long-standing members of the Sydney Symphony Orchestra: Principal Harp, Louise Johnson, former Principal Flute, Janet Webb, Marina Marsden (violin) and Justine Marsden (viola).

Crafted especially for this intimate recital at Delmar Gallery, The Last Rose of Summer is a program filled with melancholic beauty and shimmering elegance, the ethereal sounds of harp and complemented by the vibrancy and warmth of the strings. Not to be missed!

Daniel Weltlinger

Praised by SMH critic John Shand for his “incandescent” playing and “glorious tone”, one of Australia’s foremost Gypsy-jazz musicians and composers will stop by Delmar Gallery to perform a selection from his acclaimed seven-year, three-CD homage to Django Reinhardt.

Dedicated to Reinhart’s international legion of fans, Weltlinger’s original compositions and arrangements pay tribute to the enduring Gypsy Swing or ‘Manouche’ musical style which Reinhardt pioneered in the 1930s-1950s, and which continues to inspire countless musicians and audiences around the world today.

Now based in Berlin, Weltlinger recorded the third CD Samoreau (2017) in Germany with members of Reinhardt’s family. For his Sydney appearance, he will be joined by a stellar line-up of local jazz talent.

Dr Rosenberg’s Wunderkammer

Tracing the upheavals, aspirations and oddities of the 20th century, The Rosenberg Museum is a violin museum like no other.

Previously exhibited in Violin (Slovakia) and Berlin before being repatriated to Australia and displayed at Carriageworks in 2016, it takes up residence at Delmar Gallery for a short time.

Brand new instruments such as the Diaphonium and the One-String Horn Fiddle join this unique collection of over 1,000 artefacts featuring everything on, with, or about violins.

The brainchild of violinist, composer, improviser, and inventor Jon Rose, these are not just your regular violins. This museum features violins of fantasy and the fantastic. Violins with extra necks, violins with way too many strings, robot violins, wheeling violins, violins joined together like Siamese twins, and violins to be played on and by a bicycle are just some of the 1,000-odd artefacts.

Dr Rosenberg’s Wunderkammer is a cabinet of curiosities that will fascinate, disturb and delight.

Free performances, demonstrations and talks on Sundays at 2pm (excluding Easter weekend, when the gallery is closed).

Peng Xiangjie
Cosplay (Second Dimension)

Chinese photographer Peng Xiangjie travelled to cities across China to document a widespread, subcultural phenomenon amongst younger generations: cosplay festivals. In his series of portraits of festival participants, he finds a ‘second dimension’ opening up between the fictional and the real. In a society that does not fully accept gender fluidity and diverse sexualities, cosplay creates a space where these identities can be expressed and explored.

Sheila Zhao
The East Was Red

Chinese-American photographer Sheila Zhao examines how political narratives can affect a nation’s collective consciousness, as seen through the lens of found photographs from China’s Cultural Revolution. The East Was Red considers how politics of the time impacted on the way the Chinese populace chose to represent themselves – and ultimately changed the photographic history of China.

Olivia Martin-McGuire
China Love

China’s rapidly growing wedding industry is worth over 80 billion dollars. Australian photographer Olivia Martin-McGuire has documented one of the industry’s most curious parts: the pre-wedding photo shoot. Up to a year before the wedding, every couple participates in elaborate shoots complete with fantasy costumes and backdrops. Not only are they proof of the forthcoming marriage, but proof of the new era of love, romance, freedom, money and the new China dream.

Lamine Sonko Trio

10 May, 7.30pm
Delmar Gallery

Charismatic and multi-talented, Lamine Sonko is a brilliant dancer, singer, percussionist and guitarist. He was born in Senegal into a highly respected family of griots or keepers of traditional culture, with his father the director of the National Ballet and his mother a lead dancer.

After moving to Melbourne in 2004, Sonko established himself as Australia’s leading Afro-beat lyricist, fronting The Public Opinion Afro Orchestra and collaborating with various artists including Grammy Award winner Wouter Kellerman.

In 2012 he founded his most successful project to date: Lamine Sonko & The African Intelligence, a 10 piece band that delivers a rhythmic collision of African roots music, jazz, funk, and reggae. Their debut album AFRO EMPIRE was released in 2017.

For this intimate concert, he will be performing in a trio format, blending traditional African rhythms and melodies with the contemporary sound of acoustic guitar, telling stories of ancient lands and cross-cultural journeys.

Proudly presented by Trinity Grammar’s Society of the Arts & Delmar Gallery as part of the 2018 Concert Series.

Ensemble Offspring

the intimacy and strangeness of these inexplicable rituals was spell-binding —ARTS HUB

Birdsong and the weird and wonderful squeaks, croaks and creaks of the Australian bush are the inspiration for this special concert by Ensemble Offspring. Sydney’s champions of adventurous new music will be performing in a trio presentation of flute (Lamorna Nightingale), clarinet (Jason Noble) and percussion (Claire Edwardes).

It’s a program which shines the spotlight on female composers as well as the newest of the new living music: every work on the program was written in collaboration with the musicians of Ensemble Offspring and features them as soloists and long time passionate chamber music collaborators.

Visceral and vibrant with an emphasis on raw, direct brush marks, the exhibition highlights an expressionist current in contemporary Australian painting. In the artists’ distinctive approaches to painting, curator Sioux Garside foregrounds a common drive to experiment and investigate, constantly pushing their work and striving to move in surprising directions: “keeping it all flowing, fluid and happening”, as she quotes the late Roy Jackson.

The exhibition includes large-scale, expansive paintings, as well as smaller canvases and works on paper, and is accompanied by a fully illustrated catalogue. Many of the works in the exhibition were completed while the artists were in studios in close proximity to each other, on bush properties in Wedderburn on the outskirts of Sydney.

Exhibition opening: Saturday 23 June, 3-5pm, with guest speaker Anne Ryan, Curator of Australian Art at the Art Gallery of New South Wales

the Grey Wing Trio

Young jazz-improvisation band, the Grey Wing Trio, has been carving out a reputation for its distinctly melodic, rapturous sound and adventurous performing.

With a nod to classical music traditions as much as to jazz, their style is epic and sweeping. Featuring the very talented line-up of Luke Sweeting on piano (Freedman Jazz finalist), Ken Allars on trumpet (James Morrison scholarship winner) and Finn Ryan on drums, their original compositions move from moments of expansive minimalism to hyper-lyrical impressionism. Glassy, water-like piano bells, flute-like horn timbres and small percussive textures flow in and out of their music.

For this very special appearance for Trinity’s Society of the Arts, the trio will be drawing on their acclaimed release “Amoroso”, improvising on their compositions to explore alternate forms and endings, with revelations of in-the-moment colours. Not to be missed!

“Themes emerge, then evaporate into floating motifs. Realities form and dissolve as if mirages. What remains is deep evanescent beauty.”
– John Fenton on Amoroso by Grey Wing Trio